CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu has set a target to achieve one hundred per cent vaccination by the month-end against the Covid-19 pandemic and till date it has inoculated 75 per cent of the population with single dose of vaccine, State Minister Ma Subramanian said on Sunday.
Even if there is a fourth or fifth wave of the contagion, the fatalities due to the virus was expected to be 'minimal' since it has been proved that people who receive the vaccination were 97.5 per cent safe, the Medical and Family Welfare Minister said here.
Subramanian was talking to reporters after inaugurating the 10th mega vaccination camp in the city.
According to him, till Saturday night 6.49 crore people received the jabs of which 4.31 crore received first dose while 2.17 people received second dose in the state.
Vaccination drive was formally rolled out by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 16 in New Delhi while former chief Minister K Palaniswami commenced the drive in Madurai in Tamil Nadu on the same day under the AIADMK rule.
Noting that 72 lakh people in the state were yet to receive the second dose, the Minister said the officials of Greater Chennai Corporation, medical and family welfare and local administration departments collected the details of the beneficiaries and the persons were being invited to take the jabs.
Meanwhile, Subramanian said 4,381 people were affected by Dengue fever in the state and currently 541 people were under treatment.
"Awareness campaigns on prevention of dengue are being held besides conducting fogging operations (to control the disease)," he said.
Health Department Principal Secretary J Radhakrishnan, Greater Chennai Corporation Commissioner Gagandeep Singh Bedi were among those who were present on the occasion.
The state saw 756 new infections on Sunday, pushing the total coronavirus count to 27,20,271 while the toll rose to 36,375 with 14 more deaths, the health department said.
Recoveries outnumbered new infections with 847 people getting discharged in the last 24 hours, aggregating to 26,75,174 leaving 8,722 active infections, a medical bulletin said.
A total of 1,00,767 samples were tested in the last 24 hours, pushing the cumulative number of specimens examined to 5.33 crore.
Coimbatore and Chennai accounted for the majority of new infections with 130 and 112 cases, respectively, while the remaining was scattered across other districts.
As many as 20 districts reported new cases below 10, while Tenkasi and Thirupathur recorded zero new infections, respectively, the bulletin said.
The state also inoculated 18,21,005 people against Covid-19 in the 10th mega vaccination exercise conducted across the state on Sunday, the Health department said.
A total of 6,72,580 people received the first dose while 11,48,425 received the second dose, comprising 75.75 per cent (first dose) and 39.53 per cent (second dose) of the population, a press release said here.
Subramanian inspected the vaccination drive in the city that was conducted in various places like primary health centres, government hospitals and schools.
The Health department commenced the mass vaccination programme every Sunday beginning September 12 and since then it has been conducting the campaign every week.
On November 17, the department decided to hold two mass vaccination exercises every week in its fight against the pandemic instead of weekly programme.
In view of the vaccination today, Subramanian said there would not be any special vaccination camp on November 22 (Monday), the release said.